A self-driving toy car using end-to-end learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/experiencor/self-driving-toy-car <comment><USER2> Check out [https://diyrobocars.com](https://diyrobocars.com) and [http://donkeycar.com](http://donkeycar.com) for similar projects. There are great communities around both, especially if you want to build your own.

<comment><USER3> I feel like a whole new world has just opened up before me. I have a rasp pi, what is the route with least technical barriers for me to get into this and start tinkering?

<comment><USER4> For DonkeyCar: follow the guide, join the slack group, ask questions!

You'll need to purchase a number of things more than the raspberry pi itself (camera, battery, car, servo controller board, wires, 3D print or purchase or build a mount for it all).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Funnily enough I did very very similar project half a year ago or so:

Code: [https://github.com/ghostFaceKillah/mini-self-driving- car](https://github.com/ghostFaceKillah/mini-self-driving-car)

Writeup: [https://ghostfacekillah.github.io/car.html](https://ghostfacekillah.github.io/car.html)

Good job for getting PWM steering right, I had only 3 state steering (full left, center, right) and it turned out to be quite a limitation in the end.

<comment><USER6> best github username. Mighty healthy!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had to look up what 'end-to-end' means in regard to neural nets and machine learning. And the answer seems to differ slightly or very much with every webpage I hit.

Stack exchange says it means 'all classifiers are trained jointly', nvidia and quora seem more in line with what I assume it means in this project. 'No human input to training sets or results as part of learning' is that what this talks about?

Is it then, unsupervised learning?

Really cool project!

<comment><USER8> In the context of automated driving, 'end-to-end' tends to mean that the net learns a transformation function that maps input images to steering wheel and pedal positions. In that sense, there is 'no human input' at any stage.

In contrast to this, every significant AD effort uses hand crafted parts for most of their pipeline. Machine learning is mostly used in the initial object detection and tracking steps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice project! In a similar vein there is this project [1] who claims _online_ end to end learning in a Raspberry Pi (included training).

[1] [https://youtu.be/0ibVhtuQkZA](https://youtu.be/0ibVhtuQkZA)

<comment><USER10> Wow, they seem to be using Hierarchical Temporal Memory rather than more traditional deep learning approaches. We've seen some rather grandiose claims about HTMs' capabilities from Numenta (who I think invented the approach?) but no really convincing applications yet, so it's really interesting to see a concrete demonstration like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is another one in Python/Lego mindstorms: [http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/scipy2012/pdfs/iqbal...](http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/scipy2012/pdfs/iqbal_mohomed.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> NVidia published a very interesting paper on this technique called "End-To-End Learning For Self-Driving Cars": [https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07316](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07316) . It's an enjoyable read.

The car learns to steer itself on an empty road. It's a good experiment to witness the power of deep learning and neural nets. For autonomous vehicles though, you need much more than that (e.g. sensor fusion, obstacle detection, localization, behaviour prediction, trajectory prediction, path planning, motion control, etc.).

<comment><USER13> From that article:

> Compared to explicit decomposition of the problem, such as lane marking > detection, path planning, and control, our end-to-end system optimizes all > processing steps simultaneously. […] Better performance will result because > the internal components self-optimize to maximize overall system > performance, instead of optimizing human-selected intermediate criteria, e. > g., lane detection.

One can imagine that it might be more difficult to get a network to solve this large problem all at once, and that there might be easier to decompose the problem and solve each part. Would it be a good idea to guide the end-to-end system by first decomposing the problem and solving each part, then using that solution as a starting guess for the whole problem? I mean, the decomposition might perhaps be a reasonable approximation of how the whole problem should be solved. (Then again, it might not.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this. But why is a CNN necessary for predicting the turning angle? Seems like OpenCV would be sufficient (assuming sufficient contrast between the line and the floor). Grab image, threshold, find the largest contour around the line, grab its minAreaRect() and from that calculate the angle.

Editing to add -- this is still a cool project. I don't mean to detract from it by pointing out that I think it could be done without the AI piece.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are there any DIY projects for creating a LIDAR?

<comment><USER16> You need to be more specific about what you want to build.

A true LIDAR system infers the round trip time of photons, either directly (time-of-flight) or based on some proxy like phase or frequency shift (AMCW/FMCW) LIDAR.

Lots of people include triangulation systems, which I disagree with. For example the RPLidar A2 is just a nicely packaged version of Kurt Konolige (et al)'s RevoLDS [1]. It projects a laser spot and takes a picture of it. Add in some known geometry, and you can use triangulation to measure distances. It's easy to build, you can do it with any old camera and a laser pointer. It's incredible how overpriced the A2 is, given that the Revo was published as $30 system.

A true LIDAR is much more difficult to build. If you go time-of-flight then you need a good laser and excellent timing electronics. If you go phase-shift then you need beam mixing/separation optics, beam modulation and a phase detector. Neither of these are easy for the average hobbyist. If you're interested, buy a laser tape measure from Leica and have a look inside to see how it works.

I belive the LIDAR-Lite is a proper LIDAR system - it ranges up to 40m which is a good hint that it's probably a true time of flight system. The Scanse Sweep is a LIDAR-Lite turned into a 2D scanner, like the sibling post. A good indicator is price. Real LIDAR systems are expensive - starting at £1k typically for something like a Hokuyo. They also tend to be much better built than the hobbyist stuff.

In principle all you need is a pulsed laser, a big collecting lense, a fast rise-time photodiode and a good (picosecond accurate) timing circuit.

[1] [https://www.robotshop.com/media/files/PDF/revolds- whitepaper...](https://www.robotshop.com/media/files/PDF/revolds- whitepaper.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> UPENN had something called F1 autonomous racing competition where they design and build 1/10th version of a F1 car race. They also have a tutorial on how to build one. Here's the link: [http://f1tenth.org/](http://f1tenth.org/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Toy cars seem perfect for perfecting AI driving skills.

With a model train like setup, you could have construction, peds, etc.

Wow!

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anybody understand where the supervision (target steering angles) comes from? I checked Learn to Drive.ipynb but that seems to just read steering outputs from a file. Shouldn't there be manual "labeling" involved?

<comment><USER12> The steering angles are probably automatically obtained from the script you run when manually training the toy vehicle. I presume at every frame an image is captured along with the steering angle for this image.

You then create a neural net architecture that is being fed images and steering angle positions and outputs steering angle predictions. This is a regression problem that can be expressed in plain English as:

"First train the neural network with a collection of images and associated steering angles. After training, if I were to give the neural network a new image it has never seen before, what steering angle would the network predict?"

NVIDIA has a paper on it[1], and I blog about a similar coursework I complete as part of Udacity's self-driving car nanodegree[2]

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07316](https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07316)

[2] [https://towardsdatascience.com/teaching-cars-to-drive- using-...](https://towardsdatascience.com/teaching-cars-to-drive-using-deep- learning-steering-angle-prediction-5773154608f2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is what I don't understand. Self driving cars could be doing lots more toy simulations in toy worlds before "having to" collect data on public roads.

<comment><USER21> Self-driving cars are already reasonably good most of the time. They need to get better at specific cases, which would be a lot harder to model in a toy. Stopping distance is going to be a lot different, just for one example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice, but the downside is that you can only train a rather limited set of traffic situations this way.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is the best kind of project to read about on HN. Well done!!</comment>


Artificial Intelligence Graduate Certificate - tma-1 http://scpd.stanford.edu/public/category/courseCategoryCertificateProfile.do?method=load&certificateId=1226717 <comment><AUTHOR> Not sure if people remember but Stanford in collaboration with Sebastian Thrun offered one of the first online educational course in Machine Learning. This piqued my interest in ML and I enrolled & completed the course from one of the most rural parts of India (I had to create an extension antenna for my 3g phone to get better reception).

Udacity was born due to the popularity of this course.

Can't thank Sebastian and Stanford enough for this free course.

<comment><USER2> That's a [edit:perfectly fine] example to choose for a Stanford MOOC, since Coursera was started based on the success of Andrew Ng's machine learning course.

edit: People below (and above) are more knowledgeable than I am.

<comment><USER3> Thrun's course was offered earlier* and Udacity launched earlier. What's funny?

* edit: I just learned the courses were simultaneous.

Udacity launched June 2011, Coursera April 2012, according to Wikipedia.

<comment><USER4> No - AI Class (Norvig/Thrun) and ML Class (Ng) both ran at the same time, in the Fall of 2011. I took both courses, but only completed the ML Class (I had to drop the AI Class due to personal issues at the time).

I'm not sure which MOOC company started first (in 2012), though - I do think it may have been Udacity. I know that when it did start, it wasn't able to offer the AI Class because of {reasons} (I think maybe licensing of course content or something) - and so instead it offered the CS373 course (at the time titled "How to Build Your Own Self Driving Vehicle" or something like that). By that time (Spring 2012), I had moved on past my earlier problems, and jumped at that course - I took it and completed it as well.

Coursera, meanwhile, was able to offer the original ML Class as a premier course (maybe Ng had different rights to the content, or maybe there was issues on the AI Class that had to do with the dual instructor partnership of the class - I'm not sure what really happened there).

After about a year (IIRC?), Udacity was able to finally offer the original AI Class as part of their courses (I think now renamed "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence").

Today, I'm taking the Udacity Nanodegree course, as I've noted before here.

I think this offering from Stanford is interesting, but it doesn't seem like it is currently "available" to enroll, because the two required courses seem closed or something? Maybe they're taking enrollment for a future starting date. That said, while the tuition isn't outside of something I could do, I currently think the best use of my money and time - after I complete the Udacity thing - would be to pursue getting a BA on CompSci or something of that nature, then pursuing other paths.

Should've done it a long time ago when I was younger - but I was dumb.

<comment><USER5> Let's not do anything drastic. If you've finished those courses and have decent experience a bachelor's degree will get you little to no practical value. If there are holes in your knowledge, by all means fill them, but a degree of little value is not a good investment in this line of work.

You are better off filling holes in your knowledge and build something awesome. That's it. You want an interview & offer at Google, facebook, Microsoft, it's pretty easy with a solid portfolio and a few months study or refresh on algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not take the Georgia Tech online MSCS instead? Only $7k, you get a Master's degree instead of a 'Certificate', and you have the option of covering a lot of the same material.

<comment><USER7> Yep. And Sebastian Thrun's course (the Stanford professor, google VP, Udacity founder and google driverless car initiator) is part of that program. You can take AI for robotics for credit there :)

<comment><USER5> They require a previous undergraduate degree, which is a no go for me. I'm already a high level software engineer at a top tier company. I have no desire to go back and take an undergraduate degree. But I do like collecting certificates... Currently taking Udacity's self-driving nano-degree, pretty fun for someone with no robotics background.

<comment><USER8> How closely do they check the undergrad degree? Some second rate universities will trade you a degree for experience plus cash. Most of them are non- accredited though.

<comment><USER9> Do you happen to know any accredited university or institution that would do that? Maybe with some examinations?

<comment><USER10> I don't think any actual accredited university would allow you to "test out" of an entire four year degree, let alone simply buy it because you have comparable experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are ML/AI certificate holders competing for the same jobs as ML/AI PhD graduates? I have a list of follow up questions to this but it seems like there's a lot of hype for ML/AI/DeepLearning but no definitive way to track this new job market. These online programs, although more accessible, are doing the same thing as their physical campus counter part and not being transparent about what to expect after finishing their programs.

<comment><AUTHOR> ML/AI is very new field. I heard someone say "AI is like teenage sex. Everyone is talking about it but no one is sure how to do it"

So for jobs, ML/AI is pretty much an even field unless there are niche research jobs which only requires Phd gradudates

<comment><USER12> According to another HN thread this is actually not true. Only having a certificate, without CS/AI undergrad, makes it almost impossible to get a job. You need Masters at least for most positions, some engineering positions you can get in with Undergrad in CS and taking the right AI courses.

<comment><USER13> Do people in the tech industry find any more value in physics/math undergrads than CS? CS is not as rigorous. I always thought that physics/math undergrad + ML certificate might be just as competitive as a masters in ML coming from a non-relevant BS

<comment><USER14> I'm going to have to disagree.

Physics/Math is useful but your particular field/speciality in CS is relevant as well. I would bet a bit more money on a CS grad to understand convexity, comp geometry and optimization than a physics grad, and math majors don't always have the code skills to develop things for production.

Point of argument here being frequently neither do CS Phds and at tech companies you pair Math/CS Phds with 'production _' engineers.

Also certificates aren't really rigorous necessarily and also are quite easy to one-off versus relevant programs/theses/research experience.

_ production is an overloaded term depending where you go

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> $20K for a few online courses? Genesereth teaching logic and automated reasoning? (I took a class from him once. Exam question: "Does a rock have intentions?")

<comment> m-photonic So, does it?

<comment><USER16> You have to take the class to find out!

<comment><USER17> You won't believe what happens next!

Find out for just 20k!

<comment><USER18> In the end, the answer is "it depends."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This costs about $15k - $19k. With all the great lecture and homework content out on the Internet about AI, ML, deep learning, vision and natural language, I wonder if one can put together a more comprehensive and customized version of this that one can learn for free.

<comment><USER20> EdX is strongly committed to learning being free. You can audit any of the courses in the AI MicroMasters for free.

[https://www.edx.org/micromasters/columbiax-artificial- intell...](https://www.edx.org/micromasters/columbiax-artificial-intelligence)

(EdX employee)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The toughest curriculum in any AI related MOOC I've seen so far. Just CS228 - Probabilistic Graphical Models is enough to bleed someone's brain. Wish Daphne Koller still taught that course.

<comment><USER5> You are in luck. They have just re-released it on Coursera. [https://www.coursera.org/specializations/probabilistic- graph...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/probabilistic-graphical- models)

<comment><USER21> That's awesome! Thanks for the link

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh well, as someone who is currently enrolled into Udacity's Self-driving car and AI nanodegrees, watching ongoing MIT's self-driving course, considering taking GATech's online M.S. degree for ML, I should probably start planning budget for this Stanford offering...

<comment><USER23> Awesome! I'm also currently taking Udacity's self-driving car nanodegree, but I think I only intend on doing the first of three semesters because I want to concentrate on the fundamentals, and not necessarily self-driving cars. Do you recommend enrolling or checking out the AI nanodegree? Have you looked at the ML one?

<comment><USER22> It's too early to evaluate AI nanodegree as it has just started and so far we did Sudoku solver ;-) As for ML, I have it on my mind after SDC & AI, though already took Ng's first run of ML one so I am not sure it would be that beneficial.

So far SDC is the best fun I had in a while, getting a car drive all by itself on a circuit feels absolutely cool! ;-) Have fun as well, I hope they have more cool stuff prepared for us!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 20k or 10k per required course (there's electives but let's assume the bare minimum) seems steep for an online certificate which seems fairly worthless from a signaling POV.

I'm not sure their brand name justifies that price (not sure about the content). The competition is probably the AI nanodegree from Udacity which costs 800$/term with the chance to earn some of that back. If the employer I want the certificate for knows what online certificates are, chances are they are familiar with Udacity (possibly more so than with Stanford in that market).

</comment><comment><USER25> If one's goal is to work at OpenAI, FAIR, or DeepMind, which would be a better use of time — obtaining this certificate or getting quality papers into NIPS / ICML?

<comment><USER26> Wow tough call. The certificate would represent a baseline of understanding which can be then further trained, a good publication history in NIPS/ICML Etc. would represent a solid contribution to the field. I would not be surprised if those were, to a first approximation, equivalent.

<comment><USER27> This has to be sarcasm right?

<comment><USER28> Clearly

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Stanford is just trying to cash in on people by having their cake and eating it too.

They want to charge 20k, but not let anyone have a chance of further advancing to complete a real degree, no matter how excellent their performance in this program.

The reason they do this is solely to protect their brand and exclusivity. They already offer online degrees but the acceptance rate is just as limited as the on campus program.

Yes the learning is important, but so is the credential and a certificate doesn't even come close to a degree in the job market.

Stanford should pick one:

1) Charge Stanford prices, scale up online, and let any student who can do the work pay tuition and earn a degree.

2) Charge lower prices for certificates and continue to artificially ration real degrees.

<comment><USER30> I did this program. I can say it was literally a waste of money. I planned on joining a member company (so I could complete the degree remotely) at some point but meh none were interesting enough to join. You can get all the value in this program for free by reading a couple textbooks.

<comment><USER22> Can you please be more specific? I am considering taking this program and any details why was this inadequate would be very helpful! Thank you!

<comment><USER30> You get to take the actual classes but you don't get real credit for them. Recruiters, hiring managers don't care because it's not a real degree and they have no knowledge of the program. If you just want the knowledge you can basically get it for free from youtube or buy the textbooks. The ML/AI lectures there were often better than the ones from Stanford. You also don't have real student privileges. Some of the professors request that you do not attempt to show up for lecture or office hours because you aren't a real student. They just want you to watch the videos online.

And so on. It was overall a pretty negative experience for me. I can't recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Darn, I thought they were preparing to give degrees to AIs.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can you get similar knowledge through books? In general what book do you recommend? I'm specifically interested in deep learning.

<comment><USER24> I think "Artificial Intelligence a Modern Approach" is still the best foundation book. However it certainly is not focused on deep learning. There's chapters on pretty much everything (one on reinforcement learning) but it is build around the idea of intelligent agents first and foremost. Best written CS book I own.

<comment><USER33> I'd love to read a book like that but I don't have any maths, and I presume those things are full of maths.

<comment><USER24> I think this book is actually very approachable without much of a mathematics background. It's structured so that you can usually skip the mathy parts (and there aren't many really). Time and space complexity might be a bit tough but it's not that hard to work through. I think the Bayes related math was explained well and should be approachable with next to no math knowledge.

The math is mostly applied and not proofs. There's a fair amount of pseudocode and algorithms but they are explained well and I think it's not hard to follow (our students of different backgrounds usually didn't have problems). I did get a bit tired of the running example of the map of Romania (essentially used for all the search related things). The diagrams for algorithms are very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Would anyone recommend this over doing a masters degree in the similar area of study but at a local university (ie. not Standford)?

<comment><USER4> Disclaimer: I do not hold any kind of real degree (just an Associates from a defunct tech school - worth little to nothing now) - so take the following for what it is...

Based on my experience, which I won't re-iterate here - the various MOOCs I've taken (and currently the Udacity Nanodegree) would not be anywhere close to a masters in the subject (unless I am severely overestimating a masters - but I don't think so).

TBH - they would probably equate closer to an Associates, at best.

This offering from Stanford? Not sure - but I still don't think it would be the equivalent. I'm not saying it wouldn't be worthwhile, but I think if your goal is a deep level of knowledge and understanding of the subject, then a quality masters program for CompSci or similar would be the better path.

<comment><USER35> Rigor is there.

I'm now working in the ML/AI research division of big-4, all I needed (and all hiring teams needed to see on my resume) were a couple of these classes (with good internal performance ratings).

Having said that, my employer paid for these classes. No way I would pay this price out of pocket. There are probably much cheaper ways to get the same knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Software engineers interested in acquiring a solid foundation in artificial > intelligence.

Does a "solid foundation in AI" actually exist?

I'm asking because it seems that nobody really knows why many algorithms actually work, or even how they should be adjusted to cover new applications. To me it sounds more like "educated guessing".

<comment><USER37> If you are talking about ML then: Bayesian stuff, Variational and MCMC, Graphical models, Deep Learning, Linear Algebra, Probability theory, Statistics, Multivariate Calculus, Optimizations - as a baseline. I think the "average" person on HN would not be interested in ML if they had to learn it rigorously. It's much easier to blackbox the entire thing and label yourself as a "ML Engineer" then learn the fundamentals listed above. Having a Stats/Applied Math background would be very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This only makes sense for people whose work will pay for them to take it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Anyone have suggestions on alternative programs that are less expensive, online, and self-paced? 40+ IT guy trying to stay relevant.

<comment><USER40> My advice, start with the free stuff. If you complete it then consider a paid thing. The completion rates of online courses is super low. I take this to mean people don't really want to do it.

<comment><USER41> I think its just difficult for people to hold themselves accountable. in standard colleges, you have other students, teachers, grades, etc which creates a social pressure for you to continue your progress.

with a MOOC, there doesnt really exist the same social pressure to continue or excel.

Its been interesting to watch how various MOOCs have tried to recreate these pressures (due dates, courses separated into weeks, peer review assignments, teacher 'office hours' etc.) and while i think they've gotten a lot better than at the beginning, im not sure they will be able to fully replicate the pressures of having real people in the classroom with you, who will notice if you are gone for a week

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> How do people in industry generally view these types of certificate programs? Is it markedly "worse" than doing e.g. a Master's on campus?

Also - is this closer to a Master's level program or part of an undergraduate curriculum?

<comment><USER43> The courses are identical to the courses one would take if they were getting their Master's at Stanford - the only difference is that only four classes are required, while a Master's requires about 15.

I'm enrolled in Stanford's CS Master's program right now through the Honors Cooperative Program (which lets you get a Master's online while working in industry), and I'm currently planning on doing a dual specialization in Systems and AI. For the AI specialization I've already taken CS 221 and 229, and I'll have to take three more AI classes drawn from a list pretty similar to the Elective Courses list in the OP.

<comment><USER44> Did you take the courses online or on campus? Did you feel like a "regular student" or "divided but equal"? Did you look at alternatives like Harvard Extension ALM in Software Engineering?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What skill should I learn next? - <AUTHOR> I have 15 years of experience working as a developer. Last 6 years I have been focused on iOS platform. The last new skill i acquired is Swift. I am looking to add next one that make me relevant (or even advance my career) for next 5 years.
What should I learn?
I have a list of candidates of my own but if you can support one of the following skills or even suggest new one would be great:
(not in any particular order)
1. Python
2. Deep Learning (interested in its applications but afraid of Math)
3. Blockchain? (not even sure what I am talking about here)
4. Backend development <comment> mike-selmo So I would suggest two! Learn backend dev or deep learning using python.

I recently started a new job and we use python for machine learning and our backend systems. It was really easy to pick up, but I had a background in PHP backend. Now I am not in the ML team so I haven't learned too much about it - I will peek at the code and understand it a little but I enjoy the backend written in python.

So I would learn 2 at a time, learn how to develop a backend in python. Then you walk away understanding how backend development works and you can apply other languages you may know to the concepts, as well as understanding python more and you can then apply that to other applications outside of backend.</comment>


Why Should You Learn Vim in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://pragmaticpineapple.com/why-should-you-learn-vim-in-2020/ <comment><USER2> Wasn't fond of Vim, but then I started to play Nethack and its variants, where movement keys were also vim keys. Everything just clicked afterwards for me.</comment>


At First I Thought Someone Was Trying to Scam Me Out of My Domain Name - <AUTHOR> https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/at-first-i-thought-someone-was-trying-to-scam-me-out-of-my-domain-name <comment><USER2> That's some awesome detective work and … wow, it sure would be nice if IPv6's extended address space allowed for less IP address reuse.</comment>


Storm Area 51: The joke that became a 'possible humanitarian disaster' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49667295 <comment><USER3> If only a few people go, then it isn't a major disaster whatever happens.

If a lot of people go, they will run into difficulty long before they get to the fence with threatening signs. There isn't remotely the infrastructure to support people on a large scale. The roads don't exist, the hotels don't exist, the food and water and gasoline sources don't exist... If a million people decided to go, that doesn't mean they will get there because they can't teleport. And they won't all fail at once in the same spot.

I'm from NY, but I've _been_ to Rachel. No gasoline and total hotel capacity of maybe 15 rooms? I remember seeing a defunct gas station that looked like it had closed in the 1960s.

<comment><USER4> > There isn't remotely the infrastructure to support people on a large scale

This hasn't stopped the Burning Man crowd in BRC

<comment><USER5> But burning man provides the infrastructure. This like burning man but with no food, water, gas, place to stay, and folks possibly shooting at you...not exactly a direct comparison.

<comment><USER6> > This like burning man but with no food, water, gas, place to stay,

so just like Burningman?

> and folks possibly shooting at you

Or Burningman back before '99 when people were still allowed to take firearms? (Anyone else remember the Drive By Shooting Range? Drums of avgas, stuffed toys, tracer rounds, and tequila, all from the back of a moving pickup - <USER2> could possibly go wrong?)

<comment><USER7> I still quite wonder how it is constitutional for the BLM to ban firearms during Burning Man.

<comment><USER8> What part of the Constitution would it violate? Is it unconstitutional to ban firearms when boarding a flight? When attending a speech by the President of the United States? When visiting your spouse in jail?

<comment><USER9> All of those examples have passed the scrutiny of the courts. Just banning firearms in large groups hasn't.

<comment><USER8> Well the only way to get court scrutiny is to gain standing and sue them.

<comment><USER9> You can infer whether it would pass by past cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, I was traveling in remote Nevada two weeks ago. camping and rock climbing in the desert.

we took a rest day and went into the nearest medium sized town. i was chatting with the cashier at a diner... she said some out of towners bought out the entire town's supply of rat poison. the poison-stockpilers were asked by another casher what they were going to do with the rat poison, they replied that they were prepping for the area 51 event.

I very clearly understood that the casher wasn't just telling us a story, she was warning us of something she herself was deeply uncomfortable.

<comment><USER11> Why are they buying rat poison in bulk?

<comment><USER12> Poison the food supply so a number of guards are sick?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >WARNING: At this time we have to warn people against coming to Rachel for the botched Storm Rachel event next weekend. The organizers are suing each other and in the meantime nothing is being done to prepare for the event. We expect riots when those visitors that may show up and paid good money find out that the reality looks nothing like what they were promised. People will get hurt. STAY AWAY FROM RACHEL NEXT WEEKEND!

From [http://www.rachel-nevada.com/](http://www.rachel-nevada.com/)

<comment><USER14> So .. Fyre Festival?

At least in this situation, they should be able to turn around and drive home. That is, if the last gas stations to that location don't run out. FEMA should already have tankers ready to head out there. More than food; having fuel to make it back to populated areas is probably more important.

<comment><USER15> If I were FEMA I'd have fuel and water trucks lined up. Moreover, I'd keep that fact quiet so as not to encourage anyone.

<comment><USER16> Why is it FEMA's responsibility to help idiots who are doing things they've been warned not to do that'll probably kill them?

<comment><USER17> Probably because the government thinks you don't deserve to die even if you're stupid. Just like people who get helped even though they stay in the path of hurricanes despite evac orders

<comment><USER18> Very noble view of the government .. another view is, the government wants order, and desperate people tend to do drastic things, which disturbs order. And with evac orders ... there is also the assumption that not everybody got the order clearly (or understood it) and you would have upset citiciens who complain the government let elder people die ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _Unlike most large-scale festivals, these events were not years in the > making._

According _BBC_ , any open air party first session was 'possible humanitarian disaster'.

<comment><USER20> Are most impromptu festivals held in the middle of nowhere in a desert with no water?

<comment><USER21> As if Area 51 is some remote desert area that takes weeks for help to arrive?

There are highways and roads, the desert itself is perfectly drivable with 4WD vehicles, you can land helicopters, planes, there are cities nearby, people have mobile phones to call for assistance easily, they would be altogether anyway, etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's not a Humanitarian disaster if someone sponsors themselves to travel to the Nevada desert and take on the US military in response to a Facebook post. It's Darwinism at work.

</comment><comment><USER23> There might be a traffic disaster, but if people fuel up and bring a few extra jugs of water and granola bars on the way in, everything will be fine.

<comment><USER24> Yeah this is being compared to Fyre Festival. The difference is Fyre Festival was on an island ill-equipped to handle that many stranded people.

This is going to end up more like your typical Internet meetup, just bigger. Lots of people will roadtrip out there, it'll fizzle out or at least be mildly entertaining, then drive home. Only problem I foresee really is traffic, but that's just boredom, not a humanitarian disaster.

<comment><USER25> Fyre Festival also involved a significant amount of fraud. I don't think anybody is fraudulently claiming that Area 51 will offer luxury accommodations to visitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If they're going to get themselves killed at Area 51 that means they won't have much time to play Untitled Goose Game[0].

I mean seriously, if you're going to do something stupid that day, why not play a video game?

[0][http://goose.game](http://goose.game)

<comment><USER27> Best Untitled Goose Game promo I've seen all week!

<comment><USER26> I am _so_ looking forward to this game. I don't even know anything about it, it just looks so stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like Alienstock is on. I'm seeing photos on Twitter that show a stage with bands setting up, a first aid trailer and tent, portapotties, a few booths selling drinks, souvenirs etc. It's hard to tell how many, but people are starting to arrive and set up camp.

So the reports that said there was no preparation at all are false, as are the predictions that no one would show up. Whether there will be a large crowd and whether they are prepared to handle that is a different matter.

</comment><comment><USER28> If there's still anything remotely serious that goes on there, they should just wrap it up. It's been a source of urban legends long enough that its best role at this point is to be a tourist destination with some cute attractions and a gift shop.

<comment><USER29> Even if they wrapped up a long time ago, the ground may still be contaminated with some top-secret (or just nasty) chemicals.

<comment><USER28> I didn't even think of that, but it's a really good point and a likely scenario.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> eh ... I bet this is blown way out. I bet less than 1,000 people actually show up. People should start office pools.

<comment><USER18> Probably, like with most internet events. There are much more people on the internet who say they are doing things and people who say and actually do things. (In lots of cases luckily, though)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Having recently read [https://kar.kent.ac.uk/14884/](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/14884/) "Western Media Coverage of Humanitarian Disasters" from 2006, I dare say it has not improved.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think this is going to be like that "unite the right thing", where a bunch of people talked tough on-line, but couldn't be bothered to get off the couch. I sincerely doubt this will turn into something serious.

Edit: some one pointed out this was a bad analogy because there was violence. I was not referring to the one in Charlottesville, VA; but the one the next year in Washington, D.C. as about twenty-four people showed [0]. I should have been clearer.

[0]: [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy3kb9/unite-the-right- ra...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy3kb9/unite-the-right-rally-dc- jason-kessler)

<comment><USER32> Unite the Right is a poor analogy for this, since it was a white-supremacist rally featuring neo-Nazis that included the public murder of a peaceful protestor. It was "serious" whether well-attended or not.

If someone is shot by a US soldier trying to enter Area 51, it will also be serious, even if attendance was low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My husband and I were thinking of going just to watch the spectacle from a distance. I'm kind of curious to see who's going to show up, but have no desire to get in the mix.

</comment><comment><USER34> Many times people should just stay home and do their laundry instead of engaging in these weird adventures, in my opinion

</comment><comment><USER35> I know some suicidal people that are thinking it will be fun to go for ending their life. I doubt most people think about how many vulnerable people are going to use this event as their exit. Nevertheless they might just all back out.

</comment><comment><USER36> Everybody that hasn't realized that the alien space ship actually existed - and was prototyped by Skunk Works - should read through the A12 Oxcart project.

Because the alien space ship sighting was reported exactly when they did the first radar test (14th Sept 1959) with the shiny silver prototype of it far out in the desert.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12)

Lockheed engineers on the project were the best ones, I guess. I mean, 60 years later people still believe it was an alien space ship. That's gotta count for something.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is not the most popular meme on the internet yet it has been amplified by large media outlets, why? It's not funny, people have died trespassing on that base. Forcible unauthorized access of a military installation is taken deadly seriously. The security force on that base has squeezed (the trigger) on trespassers. Does anyone realize that the base security force already has positions for high causality producing weapons (machine guns), and interlocking fields of fire defined? The stupidity of this astounds me.

Where's the editorial discretion of these news outlets? BBC calling it a "possible" disaster isn't helpful and doesn't absolve them of their sins.

News flash, foreign governments would love access to a number of US military facilities. Trespassers won't be dealt with like Portland deals with ANTIFA.

<comment><USER25> > _" It's not funny"_

Humor is subjective; a lot of people are laughing.

<comment><USER37> True, some people find dead people funny.</comment></comment></comment>


Lessons for a Young Scientist - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/79/catalysts/lessons-for-a-young-scientist <comment><USER2> _> And another thing: Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems. You should multiply the importance of the problem by the probability that you'll solve it and maximize that product._

A note here: when it comes to discovery, _motivation_ is vastly more important than competence and every disciplined effort will lead to greater understanding or a serendipitous result of some kind.

On the other hand, nobody can know the probability that he'll solve a problem.

Yet important problems _can_ be reliably identified. What I'm trying to point out is that there's nothing wrong with going after the big ones.

 _> But I'm hopeful this log-jam will be temporary, and that new opportunities are opening up for aspiring scientists._

To put this in context he has also stated he thinks that civilisation has only a 50% chance of surviving this century. Another reason for tackling big problems IMO.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185583.Our_Final_Hour](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185583.Our_Final_Hour)

<comment><USER3> >he has also stated he thinks that civilisation has only a 50% chance of surviving this century.

I can't understand this line of thinking.

Human civilization has been around for ~10,000 years, and in the past two centuries nearly every metric related to human well-being has improved (see The Rational Optimist or Enlightenment Now).

And this isn't coming at the expense of the natural world, which is better protected as the world gets more technologically advanced and wealthier (More From Less by Andrew McAfee and numerous other sources).

Why would all of this reverse so rapidly in the next 80 years?

<comment><USER4> > Human civilization has been around for ~10,000 years

There have been many civilisations in that time period, almost all of which have vanished. Why should this one be different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've worked a little bit in an idea to enable more citizen science: [https://www.eonias.org/](https://www.eonias.org/)

Anyone with research ideas or an idea for a grant proposal please reach out.

<comment><USER6> Have you guys coordinated with some of the other agencies out there? I'm a big fan and supporter of the Thriving Earth Exchange and part of their goals is to help with citizen science as well as education.

<comment><USER5> I hadn't heard of TEE, thanks for the link. We have not yet had the opportunity to collaborate with other agencies (outside of interactions with gov institutions), but are eager to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gosh, how perjorative this article is!

This quote makes me cringe: "The great ecologist E.O. Wilson avers that to be effective in some scientific fields it's actually best not to be too bright."

Certainly there's merit in exercising a certain degree of rigour, much of scientific work can be boring, but yeesh, "not too bright" sums up the old boys' club right there doesn't it? If you can't be judged on merit, what will you be judged on, eh?

And then there's this doozy: "Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems."

Completely ignoring the fact that understanding that a particular problem is the grandest in the field requires a modicum of understanding of the field itself. And should we condemn someone to make their life's calling no bolder than coming up with a better lamp-post or cataloguing all the insects in the garden?

Finally, a nugget of truth in this travesty: "Fifty years ago, my generation benefited from the fact that the science profession was still growing exponentially, riding on the expansion of higher education. Then, the young outnumbered the old; moreover, it was normal (and generally mandatory) to retire by one's mid-60s."

Emphasis [mine] on _mandatory_. Let's bring that back. Speaking of which, Martin, why haven't you retired yet??

I would love to tear this article apart, quote by quote. But, as a practicing scientist, I, quite frankly, lack the bandwidth.

<comment><USER8> I have found all articles like this written by senior established scientists can be summarised as "Looks like things aren't as good as they used to be. Anecdote about old scientists 1, 2, 3. Science is important. The end." They never say anything about actual scientists born after 1975. This is the very definition of pontification.

<comment><USER9> Because it's so depressing.

When I was at my old physics lab I did a back of the envelope calculation for how much I was getting paid an hour given the work they expected me to do.

It was less than I would have made flipping burgers.

That was the end of my scientific career.

>I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.

[http://katz.fastmail.us/scientist.html](http://katz.fastmail.us/scientist.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _[...] Once, when Eddington presented his ideas in a lecture in Holland, a young scientist in the audience asked his older colleague,

"Do all old physicists go off on crazy tangents when they get old?"

No, the older scientist answered, "A genius like Eddington may perhaps go nuts but a fellow like you just gets dumber and dumber." [...]_

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice article, I wonder if there are good examples of significant basic research being done by outsiders as hobbyists and amateurs ?

I imagine in mathematics this would be possible, but increasingly less likely as the research becomes more capital intensive

<comment><USER12> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist#Notable_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist#Notable_independent_scientists)

In my own field, fluid dynamics, Robert Kraichnan is very well respected and spent the majority of his career working as an independent scientist. As you suggested, math is cheap, so Kraichnan was a theorist.

This seems to be the largest online forum for independent scientists: [https://forum.igdore.org/](https://forum.igdore.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >And another thing: Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems. You should multiply the importance of the problem by the probability that you'll solve it and maximize that product.

This echoes something Terry Tao said:[0]

>There is a particularly dangerous occupational hazard in this subject: one can become focused, to the exclusion of other mathematical activity (and in extreme cases, on non-mathematical activity also), on a single really difficult problem in a field (or on some grand unifying theory) before one is really ready (both in terms of mathematical preparation, and also in terms of one's career) to devote so much of one's research time to such a project.

The "don't be too bright" advice matches what something Terry's said as well:[1]

>Does one have to be a genius to do mathematics?

>The answer is an emphatic _NO_. In order to make good and useful contributions to mathematics, one does need to work hard, learn one's field well, learn other fields and tools, ask questions, talk to other mathematicians, and think about the "big picture". And yes, a reasonable amount of intelligence, patience, and maturity is also required. But one does _not_ need some sort of magic "genius gene" that spontaneously generates ex nihilo deep insights, unexpected solutions to problems, or other supernatural abilities.

Nowhere do they say that you shouldn't care about, think about, or try to solve big important unsolved problems. The point is that there is a lot of work out there that isn't the grand fundamental problems, that it's still really important work, and that you probably aren't ready to tackle those problems yet. Give them a go, but don't spend years of your early career trying to solve the Riemann hypothesis, because that's the route to publishing your work on vixra.

[0]: [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/dont- prematurel...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/dont-prematurely- obsess-on-a-single-big-problem-or-big-theory/) [1]: [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one- have-t...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a- genius-to-do-maths/)</comment>


The Case for Single Founder Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/09/the-case-for-the-single-founde.php <comment><USER2> I actually set out looking for a co-founder a few months ago when I was starting to build the product. Since most of my friends went to big-name jobs right after graduation, nobody was particularly keen on starting up.

I hit up all the networking events - barcamps, startup events, and other miscellaneous meetups. I met a lot of people, offered to buy them beer in exchange for hearing out my idea, and made some great friends. The people who were capable and experienced were already in a job, or a startup of their own. The ones who were interested to join me were ready to do it part-time and half heartedly. The two people who were enamored by the idea and wanted in couldn't code for nuts.

Two months later, I am still single, two weeks away from launch, and things are going great. I have some unconventional little discoveries by my tiny amount of experience:

1\. Go somewhere you'll be surrounded by people. I went back to college and have friends all around. In the event that I get bored or need to take a break, a coffee break with five people is just a phone call away.

2\. I realized that it's hard to stay fully motivated through the entire thing. Talk to your friends and family about it and tell them it'll take their help. My parents were extremely helpful, and my mother patiently used to listen to my ideas, even though she couldn't really understand what an alpha release is.

I actually found some minor advantages of being a single founder. For instance - you get the flexibility to travel around and relocate if you want. But the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

In programmerspeak - I felt being a single founder instead of having a co- founder is somewhat like writing a web application in C++ instead of Rails. It's harder, though not impossible. And you learn a lot more about yourself and your limits.

</comment><comment><USER3> I founded a company with my twin brother which is a unique situation since we often act as one person. So we get the best of both worlds in a way.

However, I can't imagine starting a company alone. The roller coaster ride is very tough at times, and we somehow rotate picking each other up during difficult periods.

Starting a company with someone is like marriage, but you don't really have a method to get divorced. A few comments mention meeting people at events to start a company with them, but I'd be careful with that. I know a founder who recruiters his co-founders that way and he has already fired 3 of them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not having a co-founder isn't usually a choice. But if not having a co-founder stops you from doing what you want, then that's a choice. You should always keep going and make the best of your situation, co-founder or not.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I struggled to make things work with my ex-co-founder for three months before deciding to go solo. It's working out just fine.

Everyone will tell you you can't do it alone. I'd modify that a little: don't do it alone if you have a choice. Otherwise, go right ahead. Be your own data point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been (and am) a single founder and also have been a co-founder in the past.

From my perspective the positives of having a co-founder include the motivation at the early stages, when there's just a couple of you. Tasks can be handed off easily, based on skill-set and it can help to accelerate the start-up. In my own experience, the negatives can be a vision/goal that is different to what you thought it was at the start (despite a lot of talking about it) and also sometimes the partners (ie girlfriends/wives) can have a direct impact on relationships. Its also easier I think to start with a co- founder as you feel you have someone to 'share' decisions with, though in my experience this can sometimes slow down decisions. As a single founder you make a decision quickly and move on.

Now that I've had a few businesses over the last 15 years I much prefer to be a single founder. I hire in the talent that I don't have and this means that I can be more agile with what I do.

There is NO right or wrong answer here. It's whatever is the best fit for you as a person and for the business.

</comment><comment><USER7> Got to agree with this:

> But Grieselhuber argues that entrepreneurs should worry less about having > "everything perfectly meet other people's criteria," and instead focus on, > to quote Nike, "just doing it."

One thing that will definitely kill your startup faster than not having a co- founder is if you never attempt it because you can't find a co-founder. Like it or not, good co-founders are rare people and ones who will come on board with somebody who has nothing to show are even rarer. So just do it. Keep looking for a co-founder, for sure, but part of finding one is _just getting on with it_.

</comment><comment><USER8> My hat is off to you and you make a good point that you can act autonomously and you didn't waste time searching for a co-founder.

While going solo does have these benefits, I personally think that lasts only so long before you start to miss out on the benefits of having a co-founder working along side you. You will fight, argue, and yell at each other for sure, but you'll also collaborate, pick up each others spirits when times are tough, and have a more diverse set of skills that pack your startup's talent portfolio.

In general, if you can start out working alone and get as much done as you have, then by all means do it; but I'd be on the look out for someone that compliments you and can help propel your company forward that much faster. Don't force the connection, but don't take the mind set that "I've come this far alone, I don't need anyone else" either.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one thing that I think needs to be explained a little better. I'm always open to working with somebody else and will be hiring at some point.

The point is that by deciding to just do it on your own if you don't have a co-founder is you remove a factor that you have little control over anyway and can focus on things you can control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a part time single founder of www.socialadmanager.com and a part-time co- founder (adult site). I have found that it helps not only in terms of working on the product at a faster pace but things just get done at a must faster pace in general as a single founder.

As a single founder if users are complaining about something then I am the only one there to fix it so the most important things (the ones being bitched about the most) always get done first and if it needs to be implemented as a product feature I don't have to discuss things with people like i do at work.

At work everyone wants to feel as if their opinion matters even if it does not. We have to get a consensus on things and trade emails, phone calls, text messages etc... just to get a simple feature out the door or any similar task.

I can just get in and fucking do it. We spend so much time at work justifying shit to morons that want to play devils advocate or salesmen that are asking for random things that they don't even really understand.

As a single founder when I develop I keep in mind that I will need to maintain and manage this feature myself so it is mandatory that all features have proper test and administration tools that facilitate this. Then if and when something happens I can quickly deal with it and move on to something else.

At work I am usually outvoted since we all agreed to do "group product development" (Note: this was done to ensure the authenticity of the site within its niche (xxx)). Even though I make sure we have test the maintenance portion is usually seen as a luxury so we go without until something fucks up. At that time a day or so is spent paralyzed by indecision and a few more asking how to fix the issue with minimal impact to users blah blah blah it eventually gets done but its never smooth.

Oddly enough I think that one place being a single founder also helps is in customer service. I always make sure that every one gets an answer to their questions. And 2 (or half lol) of my agency clients actually have my cell phone number and call me whenever they really need something important or right now. Some people would think thats lame but what I have found is that it makes me focus on what the most common things people call me about are and work them into the product asap so that I don't have to be involved in the task.

Anyway... this is just my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER10> The success of a venture is going to have much more to do with WHO starts the company than whether or not there is one or more of them. Look at history and we see all kinds of successful companies that were started by sole founders on the one hand and more than one founder on the other. Maybe there is a statistical likelihood of a company being more successful if there is more than one founder... but no entrepreneur in their right mind is going to base their decisions on those kinds of stats. So much depends on the unique circumstances that you find yourself in. I particularly like this quote:

'But Grieselhuber argues that entrepreneurs should worry less about having "everything perfectly meet other people's criteria," and instead focus on, to quote Nike, "just doing it."'

</comment><comment><USER11> Investors frequently look to others for votes of confidence in a potential deal, whether it's PG wanting multiple-person teams or VCs who close when other VCs take an interest. The "vote of no confidence" argument is for why having multiple founders is an indicator of success but does not directly imply causality.

There are plenty of actual reasons why multiple founders would be a cause of success, but they rest entirely on having the right cofounder:

* Having a cofounder keeps you committed, if your cofounder is committed.

* A startup is a ton of work. Make sure your cofounder understands this from the beginning. Especially watch out for the chicken/pig situation.

* A startup is an emotional roller coaster, so make sure you surround yourself with people who will hold you up. Actively avoid anyone who creates excess negativity or drama.

This all seems obvious now, but I made the mistake of being too careless/lax with all three of these points. The temptation is to assume that you will work things out. Trust, but verify, preferably before you put in time and money.

Now I'm a single founder. I'm looking for a cofounder but am rather picky. If I miss my chance at YC funding due to lack of partner, I have other options. If I were to rush the process and take on a bad relationship, it would probably doom the venture.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting but it's a shame that R/WW only dedicates a few lines to this. I'd have loved to have scratched beneath the surface to discover more about how the founder balances dev tasks and admin, and also stuff like product acceptance testing if he is also the engineer building it.

I'm not ratting on R/WW per se but I am disappointed by the 'bare minimum' blogging to just rack up a page impression rather than deliver an insight.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've written about some of this before ([http://ginzametrics.com/the-royal-we- single-founder-startups...](http://ginzametrics.com/the-royal-we-single- founder-startups.html)) but you bring up a good point as a lot of making this work is a balancing act. I'll write something up when I get a chance.

<comment><USER13> Beautifully put and written. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I agree about the idea generation (along with the rest of the article), its not as tough as one thinks it out to be. Being open to more information from whatever source one can get it from, books, videos, customers, friends, etc is the first step in idea generation.

This is the way I like to put it:

Given the same level of creativity or intelligence, a person with more information can come up with more ideas than the one with less information.

Another way I like to put it (my 'understanding' of how to increase the rate of innovation):

If a hypothetical innovation/solution (idea) needs 10 points of information (now don't take the 'points' in a literal sense, its a metaphor) connected in a particular pattern (the points together with the pattern, constituting the 'idea/innovation/solution'), given two people or teams with equal intelligence or creative capability, the team which already has 8 points of information will have a better chance of making that innovation or finding that solution than the team with just 5 points of information.

Because the first team/person has to creatively find out where or what just the other 2 points are while the second team has to creatively find out about those 5 missing points. The odds are definitely in favor of the team with 8 existing points of information and just 2 missing points.

Of course, this is a theory/principal that assumes equality of all other resources to make a point.

End of the day, information rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Was reading pg's comments about single founders:

"What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best."

Someone else mentioned it on this thread, but I'll expound. The majority of good solid people who are _capable_ of being 'co-founders' of something are likely already doing it. 'Capable' has many dimensions - financial stability, personal drive, motivation, risk tolerance, etc. This notion of 'get your friends to join you' is extremely narrow, and while this may be how life in the Valley is, I can assure you it's not like that in most of the country where the rest of us live.

Also: "And you learn a lot more about yourself and your limits." That's right. One of the things that happens with 'co-founder' situations is that you're both learning about yourselves _and_ each other at the same time. Taking on a 'co-founder' who's "good with sales" - unless there's a demonstrable (and ideally _long_ ) track record is essentially a _huge_ gamble, as both of you are making a guess about someone's ability. Personally, I tend to discount anyone's self-estimate about their own ability - show me the track record.

As for the other comment about 'only being able to do so much on your own' - that's what hiring other people is all about. I understand there's not always money up front to do that. But I'd say you'll be in a much better position to contract out the bits you can't do, either at a reduced rate or some sort of time-limited profit sharing, but in no way just bring someone on as a 'co- founder'. If they are truly starting at the beginning, that's different, but bringing someone on after you've done much of the hard work - nope. Yes, you might not be able to find quality talent, but you couldn't find it in the beginning anyway.

My own view is I'd be much more likely to want to work with someone after they've demonstrated the ability to do something on their own which produces revenue (or something insanely innovative from a technology viewpoint that I grok instantly and see a distinct vision for, but that's not crossed my path yet). If you've got 'a cool idea', and want me to come on board as a 'co- founder' and do all the hard tech work, and you've never sold anything to anyone, and want to veto every suggestion I have, we're not co-founders - you're looking for hired help. And that's fine, but the hired help need to be paid.

I've been approached numerous times over the past few years about coming on as a 'technical cofounder'. Only once did someone even have a proof of concept put together that was demonstrating the idea in rough form (including a revenue stream, however meager it was). In all other cases, the execution onus is entirely on me, and in every case, there were some rather odd directions people wanted to move in. When questioned, in every case the 'founder' (who hadn't done anything except float an idea by people) was adamant that the vision was great and couldn't be changed. And without me (or someone) it couldn't be executed, but that point seemed to be lost. It seemed people I was talking to would generally rather have 100% control of an idea rather than, say, 80% control over an actual working service/product. Maybe my experiences are radically different from others who get approached about being 'co- founders'?

Short view - I agree with the notion of 'DIY' as far as you can as a single founder in your enterprise before you start looking for help. With the luxury of some initial success behind you, you'll be in a much better bargaining position when bringing help on board in whatever capacity (paid, equity, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing that is worth mentioning about pg because he is brought up in these conversations: many investors talk about investing in the team and not the product, but this is often just lip service.

PG not only actually invests in people, but is also willing to overlook his own criteria when he finds people he believes in. It's one of the things that really sets him apart.

<comment><USER5> Being willing to overlook your own criteria is normally just plain inconsistent.

<comment><USER13> I am big fan of consistency (not saying I am), makes for great team members, employees and advisors.

But consistency with no regards to the outcome or circumstances, thats plain crock!

<comment><USER5> Of course. What I meant was: when a rule no longer applies, remove it and declare so publicly.

<comment><USER13> I would say that _every_ rule has exceptions. And the degree of exceptions to each rule may vary from rule to rule. But if one were to eliminate all rules that has at least one scenario where it could be considered as an exception, this world would have no rules at all.

If one were to make a list of all scenarios where a one line rule has exceptions, one would have long documents like 'Terms and conditions' instead of easy to comprehend one line rules that would provide reasonable guidance in a majority of situations.

Thats why it is good to apply a bit of wisdom in applying a rule/advice to a scenario and see if that rule applies to that situation or not, irrespective of from whom that advice comes from and not follow them blindly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Coming from an engineering perspective, finding a suitable "business-side" person is extremely harder, than the other way around, for the simple reason of track record.

How do you measure someone's ability to actualize a business? By observing the previous businesses he made, annual turnover, profit, and exit.

Someone already having any of these is extremely unlikely to be looking for a "technical co-founder" -he will be looking for employees.

Thus, everyone touting themselves as a "business guy looking for co-founder" has an extreme likelihood of unvalidated track record, and by very definition, an unqualified candidate for co-founding.

I'm very open taking suggestions on how to tackle this problem, other than taking random lottery tickets -my current solution is working alone, but it's massively sub-optimal.

<comment><USER16> Thinking about a potential partner this way is an enormous category error. Lot's of people that have made it and wasted huge amounts of time and money trying to do it again, neglecting luck and other things that gave them their fortune (not to discount the skill that went into making it).

There are far more charismatic people then there are people worth 10s of $M. Finding a person that is passionate about what you are doing is far more valuable than trying to get a mister money bags to carry you for your first foray into serious business.

<comment><USER15> By no means am I looking for "money bags to carry me"; neither would this be my "first foray into serious business".

However, you are asking me here to give up the primal discipline of meritocracy -evaluating plans, ideas, thoughts based upon demonstrated / actualized intelligence, and merit - in exchange for charisma -the ability of persuasion.

For that, I call BULLSHIT: based on my previous data points, the highest probability of root reason you're asking me this, is to make way for a hidden agenda of yours (or people like yourself). And for that, you deserve a public bozo bit.

<comment><USER16> Ask your dr about xanax at the soonest possible hour. I have no interest in collaboration with a mad man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think multiple founders vs. single is extremely overrated. It's a lot of work for sure, and I have to go outside my comfort zone pretty often, but I bet that's true for startups with 2 or 3 founders too.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've read the original article, and (as with lots of YC/PG stuff) it mostly applies to a certain type of startups. Yes, you probably won't have a billion $ "exit strategy" if you start your bootstrapped small-time business as a single founder in Podunk. But I don't see a reason why every entrepreneur should aim to be the next Oracle, Google or Facebook. You can always be the equivalent to your local small time business or even Mom & Pop shop. I'm a bit disappointed with the widespread use of the "Think Big!" philosophy, especially when it's presented as the only way. (And no, I don't even think that PG sees this as the only way. I'm just noting a certain bias I often see when the word "startup" gets tossed around.)

Never even mind the US centrism of that mindset…

<comment><USER13> There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a small set up if one is comfortable with that set up. But if the idea of somebody who wants to keep it small is really good, even if he wants to keep it small there may be soon competitors who are ready to copy the idea, put more money and send the small shop to kingdom come.

Sometimes, nay, I change it to every time (especially in the tech industry) size is the best defense against competition (Actually it is size and what advantages it brings along with it)

For a company with a really good idea, if it does not grow really fast enough, it soon becomes blood for the sharks, not the future shark.

Thats the beautiful thing about Google, they so quickly executed the finance aspects (book building IPO), the people aspects (freedom to experiment and generate ideas, free food) and the monetizing aspects (search based ads) of their business, to enable them to keep growing at a breath taking speed. If it hadn't and just kept growing at an attractive pace, but not a furious pace, they would have been bought of by some other tech biggie or attracted more serious competition long back.

And whats wrong with the adage "Aim for the stars and you can at least fall on the moon" (or something like that)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> From my small amount of personal experience thus far I have to say that a co- founder is tremendously helpful as a sounding board, someone that lives and understands the product as much as you do debate various features and discover hard to track down bugs or architecture problems.

At different stages so far we would have been setting ourselves up for big problems down the line if not for things we caught discussion the product with each other. So you can get a lot of outside opinion and advice but it doesn't really compare to having someone who spends just as long as you wrapping their heads around exactly how it works and where we are at.

To be fair I don't have any real experience as a single founder on something of a similar scale to see both sides of the fence.

</comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for posting it. It was morale boosting for me as I am currently a single founder. Does give me hope in spite of the heavy odds I know that are against me :) ( at least with respect to YC funding, not for the long term prospects though)

I do agree that one can't wait to build the perfect team to start a project. If one knows enough experts experts in the required domains for the project, has good working rapport with them, by all means build a team with them. But if you don't know such people, then just get on with it. You will likely meet such experts at least for your next project if not for the current project

At the same time, from experience, I would have to agree with the Big P, that he is right about the chance of success being low for single founders. (Provided it is not an absolute statements and is instead a generality, there are _alwasy_ exceptions)

Startups require lots of decisions that can make or break a company if not done right, often done very fast. And the right decisions are mostly a result of comfort or reasonable enough grasp of different domains such as finance, technology, programming, customers/marketing, to just name a few, and applying loads of common sense on that grasp.

Its very rare to have one person who has enough of a grasp on these different domains to not just be comfortable making decsions on them quickly enough and under ennormous stress, but keep making GOOD decisions critical to the sustainance and growth of the company. Yes, one can learn them fast, but then its a matter of can one person learn them fast and deep to keep making continuously quick and reasonably good decisions while still working on the development.

Thats why teams can often be more successful. Teams can access expertise on differnt domains of differnt team members(if that was the basis of builing the said team). Even if they do not have the domain expertise, the learning can be delegated to different team members and more can be covered than one person can. And there is nothing more beautiful or capable than a highly integrated and coordinated team that can move and react together to changing circumstances and keep delivering.

But thats just one side of the team coin. Along wtih bringing strengths to a team, team members also bring their weaknesses to a team. Unless the team has a way to deal with those weaknesses or have enough rapport with each other to recognise those weaknesses and find solutions to them, the weaknesses can just outweigh the strengths causing the failure of that team.

Not to mention, what about the other dynamics, ifs and buts that a team brings in? Do they really have one unified vision that they can stick to inspite of ups and downs? Can they stick together when the vision has to be modified? And so on...

I wonder, if PG and the team at YC, have any metrics/analysis on how many of the past founder teams have failed due to bad team dynamics inspite of great ideas.

(Feeling sheepish for the long post, Couldnt' help expressing myself on this topic)

</comment><comment><USER20> I've done both. It is better to go single than have a founder who isn't in sync. If you can find a founder who is in sync with you, that is best. But most of the startups I've seen fail, even though the blame was placed elsewhere, really boiled down to conflict between founders. No market fit? Because the founders couldn't agree to listen to the market. Etc. Etc.</comment>


The D Language Front-End Merged Into GCC 9 - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-9-Merges-D-Language <comment><USER3> I was sad that D never took off. I had high hopes that it would eventually replace C++ for my professional development. D was a language that really enabled functional programming, and I mean _real_ functional programming while retaining the low level control of C.

We learned a lot from pushing D, and now I am working full time as a Rust developer. Rust doesn't have everything D has, but it also has plenty that D doesn't have and it's still in the same spirit of safer, more expressive C++ with the same efficiency. I hope that D developers will check out Rust and try to push a single front, I think it has a better chance of knocking C++ off its pedestal.

<comment><USER4> The critical faults with D that prevented it from displacing C* were that it relied on a GC by default and that it wasn't open source. Things might have played out much differently had they addressed these issues early on.

* aside from inertia, but older languages also had inertia once.

<comment><USER5> It's been open source for 10 years now.

<comment><USER4> And the BSDs have mostly moved passed the era of legal ambiguity that plagued them early in their development. For better or worse, timing and initial impressions count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is almost entirely due to the indefatigable work by Iain Buclaw.

<comment><USER6> This has taken a long time! But also, it's just him working almost alone. I'm so happy this finally happened, though! Yay, more D!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So what is the currently "best compiler" for D? Is it DMD or GCC or...?

<comment><USER5> Ain't it great to have a choice? Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and have different feels. Just install all three, and see which one suits your style best.

<comment><USER8> > _Ain 't it great to have a choice?_

Not if the choice leads to duplication of effort, smaller community, feuds and conflicts, decision fatigue, and so on.

<comment><USER9> _> Ain't it great to have plenty of water to drink?_

Not if it leads to water intoxication.

<comment><USER8> Only water intoxication is easy to avoid and 99.999% of the population manages even with tons of water available.

Whereas the things I mentioned are endemic in many communities with such choices between different implementations.

So not an apt counter-argument. An analogy doesn't just need to be somewhat similar to the situation -- it needs to have similar ups and downs too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It took longer than originally planned, but it finally happened!

Congratulations to everyone involved.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope the front end is called 'gcd' it makes for a great pun.

<comment><USER12> GNU Compiler, D?

<comment><USER11> GCD is the greatest common divisor, and D is the language with the greatest common set of features relative to the set of languages that the gcc suite can compile. So in many ways it is an equivalent to the GCD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So this would mean we can write D in GCC implementation? But would this increase the user base of D?

<comment><USER14> > So this would mean we can write D in GCC implementation?

No it doesn't mean that. GCC coding standards require (old, portable) C or C++.

<comment><USER12> Uhh no, not really, GNU doesn't "require C or C++". First of all GNU coding standard says C is the most recommended language, not C or C++. It even suggests Java before C++ (but I suspect that's a relic of old GNU AoT Java compiler?) and requests people not to use templates (which is hardly what we call C++ nowadays). Other than that, it's 100% ok to write a GNU package in any language people can generally understand and there is a free implementation available, like python, lisp etc. Scheme (via GNU Guile) is even the "official extension language" of GNU and emacs (one of the more popular and older GNU packages) is mostly written in lisp.

You must also understand that GNU optimizes for masses to understand the source code, and GNU coding standard was written when C was a very popular language and investing in any other language would just be a gamble. Imagine GNU being written in TCL or Ada... C was and still is a safe choice if you want a good deal of people to understand your code decades later.

<comment><USER15> GNU coding standards != GCC coding conventions

[https://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Congratulations, that's quite a milestone.

</comment><comment><USER17> That's great news! Kudos to everyone who made it possible!

</comment><comment><USER18> Great news.

Although given that gdc is already a thing I can install and use today, what practical difference does it make?

<comment><USER6> I kind of hope it means it will get maintainership from people other than Ian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congrats!

I had briefly worked and contributed to the SDC compiler. Wonder how that's doing.

</comment><comment><USER20> does this mean that D-lang will support compilation to all the CPU/OS combination, that will be supported by GCC 9?

or there will be a subset?

Great news, very happy to hear this, and the release of the BetterC.

</comment><comment><USER21> D is a nice language. It has a wide range of features, but one can get started with it without learning all of them.

Here are a handful of D programs that use various features of the language and some of its libraries, on my blog. Most of them are simple command-line utilities to do various things. Readers may find them of use to get a flavor of the language and to know some of the kinds of things it can be used for.

I used the DMD compiler to compile and run them on Windows.

A few of the posts are about interviews too.

Don't miss the interview where the creators or key people from the C++, Rust, D and Go languages talk to each other on a panel about some of the pros and cons of their respective languages - and incident near the end of the video, involving Bjarne Stroustrup (the LangNext video below).

Porting the text pager from Python to D (DLang):

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/04/porting-text-pager- from-...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2017/04/porting-text-pager-from-python- to-d.html)

Simple parallel processing in D with std.parallelism:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/12/simple-parallel- processi...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/12/simple-parallel-processing- in-d-with.html)

Video: Interview: GoingNative 6: Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu - <USER2> Programming Language:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/11/video-interview- goingnat...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/11/video-interview- goingnative-6-walter.html)

Using std.datetime.StopWatch to time sections of D code:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/11/using- stddatetimestopwat...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/11/using- stddatetimestopwatch-to-time.html)

Read from CSV with D, write to PDF with Python:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/read-from-csv-with-d- wri...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/read-from-csv-with-d-write-to-pdf- with.html)

Command line D utility - find files matching a pattern under a directory:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/command-line-d- utility-f...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/command-line-d-utility-find- files.html)

min_fgrep: minimal fgrep command in D:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/minfgrep-minimal- fgrep-c...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/10/minfgrep-minimal-fgrep- command-in-d.html)

num_cores: find number of cores in your PC's processor:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/numcores-find-number- of-...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/numcores-find-number-of-cores-in- your.html)

Calling a simple C function from D - strcmp:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/calling-simple-c- functio...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/calling-simple-c-function- from-d-strcmp.html)

Component programming in D - DDJ article by Walter Bright:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/component-programming- in...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/component-programming-in-d-ddj- article.html)

Func-y D + Python pipeline to generate PDF:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/func-y-d-python- pipeline...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/09/func-y-d-python-pipeline-to- generate-pdf.html)

Interview: Ruminations on D: Walter Bright, DLang creator:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/interview-ruminations- on...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/interview-ruminations-on-d- walter.html)

file_sizes utility in D: print sizes of all files under a directory tree:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/filesizes-utility- print-...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/filesizes-utility-print-sizes- of-all.html)

Video: C++, Rust, D and Go: Panel at LangNext '14:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/video-c-rust-d-and-go- pa...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/08/video-c-rust-d-and-go-panel-at- langnext.html)

deltildefiles: D language utility to recursively delete vim backup files:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/07/deltildefiles-d- language...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/07/deltildefiles-d-language- utility-to.html)

[DLang]: A simple file download utility in D:

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/05/dlang-simple-file- downlo...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/05/dlang-simple-file-download- utility-in-d.html)

Getting CPU info with D (the D language):

[https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/05/getting-cpu-info- with-d-...](https://jugad2.blogspot.com/2016/05/getting-cpu-info-with-d-d- language.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> Great news.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey, you taught me a new word! Cheers.

<comment><USER24> Nice, for me it was a new word as well, even tho it was largely understandable by the radicals (in-/un- and fatig- + able)

What I wonder is:

(?) Is OP a native English speaker and is this word used in daily contexts,

(or?) did he use it because he might not be an English speaker and he searched for the words in his own language and that is the word that came out, instead of the more common "tirelessly".

(or?) he is a native speaker and he knows this word is not used in daily/common conversations... so, by using this different concoction, did he meant to translate some additional feeling? is "indefatigable" a stronger "tirelessly"?

I know it's oddly specific but I am not a native speaker and insight into these odd ducks helps me build a maturer mind model of it all.

Thank you.

<comment><USER5> I was born in America :-)

I don't recall ever hearing the word, but it appears a lot in books I've read, even recently written ones.

"indefatigable" fits what I wanted to convey better than "tirelessly". From the Cambridge English Dictionary:

"always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat"

Iain has had a plethora of reasons to abandon the project, and nobody would have blamed him. But he's persisted in the face of little encouragement, less support, and lots of complaining. It's a massive achievement. Indefatigable is the perfect word.

<comment><USER24> Thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone interested in a Hacker News virtual poker night? - <AUTHOR> Hey all, is anyone interested in a virtual poker night? Pokerstars lets you run private games, we could organise a weekly Hacker News tournament. Let me know if you are interested, a range of times that might suit and a buy in you would be OK with. I'll try to figure something out that suits the most amount of people if I get enough interest.<p>I'll start, Friday or Saturday evenings 6pm-12pm GMT would suit and a buy in up to $30. <comment><USER2> Here, in order to expedite this process, i've set up a google form to collect info from anyone interested:

[https://forms.gle/ueJrw9A7CNomB3yH6](https://forms.gle/ueJrw9A7CNomB3yH6)

also, I set up a discord server to help facilitate live chat: [https://discord.gg/vmg2HSD](https://discord.gg/vmg2HSD)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, appreciate you helping out with organising. I just filled it in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A popular sentiment, r/poker has been inundated with people asking about where to play poker with friends.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/fp2zll/where_to_play...](https://old.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/fp2zll/where_to_play_poker_online_while_quarantined/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I built a web app over the past couple of weeks to host home games with video. [https://pokerinplace.app/](https://pokerinplace.app/)

If you'd be interested in using, please do. I'd love to join as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm in... does Pokerstars accept US players for money? Or we pool the prize outside Pokerstars?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think most states are blocked by Pokerstars, so I'm fine with pooling outside and finding a different service to run the game. We could start with the entry fee small the first week until trust builds, or use an escrow if people are nervous about sending entry fee to a randomer? It shouldn't be more than $10-20 anyway, depending on what people respond with

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uh ... Your name isn't "Doc" is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Me? No

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm in

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm in

</comment><comment><USER9> Down

</comment><comment><USER2> im down

</comment><comment><USER10> Pass...</comment>


Show HN: Team collaboration on anything on the web – Skarpline - <AUTHOR> https://skarpline.com/ref/hacker-news/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

We built Skarpline after scraping a product we had built. We focused on solving our own need and the challenges we saw in modern communication and collaboration.

One of our early users made a pretty good description what makes Skarpline unique right here [http://bit.ly/1YXzy8L](http://bit.ly/1YXzy8L) (former Slack user).

And, we're doing a small announcement with "PRESS RELEASE: We are now a Unicorn Startup". [http://bit.ly/1MOgxw8](http://bit.ly/1MOgxw8)

We got featured on Product Hunt a few days ago: [https://www.producthunt.com/tech/skarpline](https://www.producthunt.com/tech/skarpline)

Take the web app for a spin. Happy to answer your questions.

Ask me anything!</comment>


This diamond battery is made from nuclear waste - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/these-scientists-are-turning-radioactive-waste-into-diamond-batteries <comment><USER2> I keep seeing these popular articles about efficient new electricity generation technologies, but they never say how much electricity is generated, so it's impossible the evaluate just how useful the new technology is.</comment>